NovaBridge released!

@All
So NovaBridge is out in the wild, and some questions pop up. While Hans is the author of NovaBridge, I betatested it as much as I could and can provide some answers. 

--What is it ?

First of all, what is it ? NovaBridge is the library which works over Warp3DNOva, allowing you to use old Warp3D apps/games/demos on any card supported by Warp3DNova (which means RadeonHD and RadeonRX ones).

It also means that you can use not only Amigaos4 native apps that require old Warp3D and/or MiniGL, but also very old WarpOS apps (though you will need to install ReWarp and ReWarp3D libraries for this). 

--Do I need that ?

If you want support for all OpenGL(MiniGL) games which were done for MiniGL on OS4, or a few pure old-Warp3D apps while you have RadeonHD or RadeonRX, then you need that.

Currently, RadeonHD has the WARP3D_SI driver to support old Warp3D/Minigl, but NovaBridge brings you more speed and better rendering (so, together with WarpOS emulation from ReWarp, you can even watch all the old MAWI demos, which render even better than on old classic machines with voodoo crads, for example).

In these terms, RadeonRX didn't have any drivers for the old Warp3D, and Daniel made some hackish attempts to fill the gap: he took the GL4ES and wrapped it in a wrapper, so RadeonRX had "minigl4gl4es," which was buggy, crashy, didn't allow many instances at the same time, didn't support everything, and so on. So RadeonRX users should just delete minigl4gl4es and forget about it forever, because NovaBridge, in comparison, is not only faster, but works as expected. All the things work: blender, celestia, games, apps, etc.

--I am lost. What do I need to buy ?

You need to buy:

* Most recent Enhancer pack and update it to the most recent 2.2 version to get all of the current Nova libraries and RadeonHD/RadeonRX drivers.

* Novabridge (of course)

Yes, RadeonHD 3.7 from Enhancer also fits if you are on an SI card. But as the latest one is 5.x, which in terms of NovaBrdige didn't bring anything, but it is still newer, so it's probably worth buying 5.x too for RadeonHD users.

That's it. 

--Benchmarks plz!

It makes no sense to compare NovaBridge to minigl4gl4es for RadeonRX because MiniGL4GL4ES means, in this case, Minigl wrapper around gl4es, which works over ogles2.library, which works over warp3dnova.For sure, removing all the layers and using NovaBridge directly over Warp3DNova for sure makes sense.

Another story is RadeonHD, which did have Warp3D_SI, which also works directly over Warp3DNova. For this one, I can give some benchmarks I did when betatesting NovaBridge. All the tests I did were done on the RadeonHD 5.11/X5000-020. Numbers in FPS on the same "heavy" parts:




As can be seen, if we didn't take into account the more correct rendering provided by NovaBridge and only checked the speed, then the games based on the idtech3 engine over NovaBridge are a bit slower in comparison with Warp3D_SI, while all other games/apps are faster.

I can get some more numbers if some of you need them, or I can make some videos that are split into 2 parts, and compare things more heavily.

--Is it absolutely bug free ?

Probably not, but I betatested it pretty hard and tried to report it to Hans as what I could test and find. The only 2 issues which are known for now are:

1). Broken rendering in Payback's warp3d rendering. That's because Payback's code didn't take into account that there could be better cards (just like it was with the Exodus game).

2). In GLquake1, it has a trashing if you have multitexturing enabled in the options (enabled by default). So you need to disable it for now. A bug has already been reported.http://www.amiga.org/developer/bugreports/view.php?id=929

I hope it helps

@kas1e
Excellent review. Thank you!
I was missing exactly such infos.

For sure I will purchase NovaBridge for X1000 and Sam440ep-flex.
And now I have to test again AmigaOne XE ( grrrrr, finished it a week ago without Nova Bridge!). I hope compatibility will be better with Bridge.

@kas1e

That's fantastic news! We have been needing this.

@kas1e

Thanks for summary.

@kas1e

Thanks for this review!

Interesting only for Radeon RX users.

Those who paid for Warp3D SI won't pay another 53€ for NovaBridge since It works without too much trouble.

@K-L
You probably didnt read carefull :) novabridge provide better rendering for oldclassic warpos-warp3d prods too. With warp3d-si almost none works, while with novabridge almost all works : heretic2, wipeout2097, mawi demos, encore demos and few others.

So, if you didnt need support for old warpos apps, and not want to spend 50e, then warp3d-si probably enough.

@K-L
I have Warp3D-SI. Its compatibility is not 100%. For example GLQake not works, and this one I often use for benchmarking, tests, comparing with MorpOS drivers.
And with AmigaOne XE Warp3D-SI is totally useless - crashed every application I tested.
So I am looking forward for better compatibility here.

@kas1e
Broken rendering in Payback's warp3d rendering

Payback requires:
https://www.apex-designs.net/PaybackUpdate7.lha

PaybackPPC works fine.

@amiga_os
I know :) by broken rendering i mean warp3d part in payback, software one is ok, but i mean warp3d one

@kas1e

As you say.

X1000 user have already spent lots of money on Enhancer Software, Radeon HD drivers up to 3x, Warp3D Si, Radeon HD diver v5 and now NovaBridge...

In less than two months, we have to pay 100 Euros to get a not really good VAAPI decoding driver (I know Hans i trying to enhance it but ATM it is really expensive for what it can do) and a better support of old Warp3D softwares (while we paid for Warp3D SI and we do not even get a discount).

Not mentioning that buying an X1000 was way more expensive than buying a X5000.

Hans provided great support for us but where will be able to find money (we can't all be beta testers) ?

@kas1e

What settings in TORCS? I seem to get much more than 8fps. How did you get an fps counter (pressing 5 does not work here)?

@ddni
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All maximum, and FPS counter probabaly also in the options to turn off/on. But TORCS and SpeedDreams never works fast on RadeonHD/RadeonRX, dunno why.. I reported that to Hans few times, but he do not know wtf. Its slow with any driver, be it Warp3D_SI, or NovaBridge.

@K-L
I fear that the only way to keep some kind of commercical devoping going on, it's to pay high prices. At least when it come to the work Hans do. We can not pay, then Mattew will have no money from, and will not pay to Hans work. I am sure even those 10-20 sales Mattew did it no way cover the price he pay for Hans work. I mean, few thousand of E, surely can't cover a half of year of work and half of year for bugfixing, if not more.

@kas1e

Thanks to Hans & you and all involved for this

NovaBridge installed on my machine! I did fast and short test with Payback, Hexen2, Cube and all games are working. Later I will do some more testing - now I wanted to know is that library works. :)

Thanks to all involved in this project!

@kas1e

No settings for fps counter in Torcs. Contrary to the manual press 0 for the stats.

@kas1e

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One of my most expected releases since you created that preview video last year

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YES!!!

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It was 'ok' and way better than nothing after switching from RadeonHD+W3D-SI to Radeon RX

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For real comparisons you could define the benchmark environment (default settings, customized, resolution, scene, ...)

My first impressions are quite positive:

- Seems not to eat much CPU cycles
- In general more fluid, correct and faster rendering
- Blender, again, finally

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Probably not but thanks to your extensive testing it contains less bugs.

One thing i've noticed without deeper investigation so far: As a heavy user of WarpView i could finally switch back from SW to W3D rendering again. Unfortunatelly having W3D enabled in WarpView leads to a cropped screen when (horizontal) resolution is higher than 1920. Can someone confirm this?

Thanks to all involved!

@kas1e
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I'm a little confused, did you mean "ReWarp and Wazp3D" libraries?

If not, I'm not sure where to get ReWarp3D?

@Ktadd
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Yeah it mean exatly ReWarp and ReWarp3D from the same author (so powerpc.library and warp3dppc.library). There latest versions of both:

ReWarp: https://jenkins.sakura-it.pl/job/ReWar ... d/artifact/src/ReWarp.lha

ReWarp3D: https://jenkins.sakura-it.pl/job/ReWar ... ifact/src/ReWarp3DPPC.lha

WaZp3D of coure big "no way" and have no needs to be used now.

@kas1e
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Thanks for the claification and links. All installed now and will try some games out.